As part of an immersive showcase, the event brought students from media and design together for the first time

It’s the end of the school year and graduate shows are underway all around the world. From Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Art to London’s Central Saint Martins, students are adding the finishing touches to their final collections and sending them out onto the runway in front of audiences including family, tutors and influential people from the industry. This week was the turn of students from London College of Fashion, as the class of 2018's BA presented their work at East London's Oval Space.

The show marked a turn towards innovation for the fashion school. “We are always looking for new ways to invest in our digital future and allow our students to express themselves in new and extraordinary ways,” says the school's head, Frances Corner. “This year’s LCF BA18 season (brought) digital to the fore, presenting a multisensory immersive experience with large scale screens and interactive media allowing viewers to experience LCF talent in bold, inspiring and memorable ways.”

The show felt like an immersive experience that was part sci-fi exhibition and part fashion runway, which rallied together graduates from both media and design fields. Held in the bare concrete space, a simple halo of lights hanging from the ceiling highlighted the collections made by this year’s cohort of fashion BA students, bringing the eye directly to each unqiuely creative detail.

Julia Hofer-MairePhotography Daniele Fummo

Some of the highlights included ripped garments criss-crossed by a multitude of fluoro threads by menswear designer Alexandra Vincent, which echoed the designs created by Miette Farrer, whose distorted tops made of tangles of threads and wires. Matilda Aberg created metal headpieces twisted in front of the models’ veiled faces, while Amari Carter’s corsets, crafted from bra straps, were given a retro-futuristic look via tiny oval sunglasses.

Colour and volume also formed a large part of the show, as seen in Jordan Charles’ multi-coloured panelled collection, and Amelia Skarpellis and and Alexandra Anderson's knitted, hooded garments. Xu balanced deconstructed tailoring with softer elements in the form of flowers, which were stitched across wide-legged trousers and hung from sunglasses. Elsewhere, Haoxin Chen and Kim Hyon Hye also worked with volumes, albeit in a more subtle way with light, sheer fabrics and plisse effects seen across pastel dresses and gingham-patterned aprons.

Taking place back at Oval Space the following night, a number of students came together to present group projects worked on in partnership with Microsoft. Showcased as part of the Future of Fashion Incubator, groups were given access to mixed reality and Artificial Intelligence technologies to create programs that could revolutionise the industry. With a unique system designed to digitally store the details of garments (from how they were made and who by, through to the elements they are subjected to throughout their lifetime) and a functional app intended to create a more sustainable wardrobe among the ideas, LCF further demonstrated their commitment to pushing fashion forward through innovation. Who knows what next year will bring?